The Hungarian Migration Research Institute established the International Migration Research Network in Budapest over the weekend with a roundtable discussion inaugurating the initiative.
The participants said that the situation is bad worldwide because governments are not willing to solve the problem.
“The aim of the networking is to bring together in a common organization research centers dealing with migration and immigration issues; to contribute to the internationalization of the values, perspectives, and research results represented by the institutes; and to facilitate the exchange of experience between the participants,” the institute said in a statement.
The signatories included the U.S.-based Center for Immigration Studies and Numbers, the Israeli Immigration Policy Center in Israel, and the Paris-based Observatoire de l’Immigration et de la Démographie.
The first event of the collaboration was a roundtable discussion with representatives of the four signatory institutions. During the talks, experts discussed the most pressing migration issues affecting their respective nations.
Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies, said at the meeting that the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border is dire. He claimed that the Biden administration had already begun to override Trump’s measures, which had stabilized the situation at the border, on day one.
“In the last three years, this administration has detained and released into the United States 3 million people who have no right to be in the United States,” Krikorian said.
The migration expert said illegal migration is no longer happening as it was a few years ago. Back then, the average arrivals were Mexican, but now they come to the border from all over the world. Krikorian added that the current administration is actively promoting border crossing and migrants are no longer trying to sneak across, they are deliberately turning themselves in.
“They want to be caught. “This administration has gotten to the point where it rejects the idea that the American people can say no to anyone at all,” he said.
Yonatan Jakubowicz, founder of the Israeli Immigration Policy Center said that it is time to address the real problems. “The current debate on immigration is unsustainable, and in many cases makes no sense. Most of the solutions offered do not even follow basic logic,” he added.
Following the round table discussion, the agreement to create the network was signed in a ceremony.
